Will Bryce Harper get MLB's first $400-million contract?

Unless he signs an extension with the Nationals before then, Bryce Harper is slated to hit free agency after the 2018 season. If Harper stays healthy until then and remains anywhere close to as productive as he was in 2015, he will almost certainly get the biggest contract in major sports history.

It should not be hard to figure out why. Harper was the best player in baseball in 2015, leading the Majors in on-base percentage and slugging. His massively increased walk rate and decreased strikeout rate indicate real improvement in his offensive approach, the type that seems likely to last — even if it won’t necessarily return him to quite the heights of his MVP campaign. And because Harper got such an early start in the big-leagues, he’s slated to hit free agency at age 26, a time when most players are expected to be only at the outset of their primes.

Think about it: The Red Sox just committed $31 million a year over the next seven years to David Price, who’s 30 years old. Price is a starting pitcher, meaning he comes with far greater risk of catastrophic injury than any position player and that he plays only once every fifth day. He got the biggest contract ever given to a pitcher and tied Miguel Cabrera for the highest salary in average annual value not because he’s the best baseball player in the world, but because he was the best baseball player to hit the open market right now.

(PHOTO: Andy Marlin/USA TODAY Sports Images)

Every year, it seems, the big free-agent deals grow bigger and seem more outlandish, but they are merely a reflection of the game’s financial state: Teams have way more money to play with now than they ever did before. And no matter how much you read about baseball’s impending death, that doesn’t seem likely to change before 2019.

Though it’s extremely rare for players to make their big-league debuts as teenagers, there’s actually recent precedent for a generational talent hitting the open market at such a young age. Alex Rodriguez became a free agent after the 2000 season and signed a then-record 10-year, $252-million deal with the Texas Rangers. Though that contract seemed impossibly large at the time, Rodriguez opted out of it to sign an even bigger one — the 10-year, $275-million agreement that still butters his bread today.

That deal, incidentally, expires after the 2017 season, and the Yanks’ smaller but still big payouts to Brian McCann, Brett Gardner, Chase Headley and Andrew Miller all end in 2018. Every team would love a player of Harper’s caliber, undoubtedly, but that the Yankees will have so much money coming off the books just as he hits free agency suggests they could very likely be in the mix for his services, a proposition certain to drive up his price. And the Dodgers, for that matter, will have Adrian Gonzalez’s $22.4 million-a-year deal expire after 2018, a year after big contracts to Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier do.

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

Harper has said he’d like to be a National for life, but he’s represented by Scott Boras, who’s hardly reputed for allowing his players to sign long-term, team-friendly extensions before they reach free agency. And Harper’s 2015 season was so good that $40 million a year might look like a serious bargain: By Fangraphs’ calculation, his production this season alone was worth something closer to $76 million by the standards of baseball’s open market.

A lot can happen between now and the end of the 2018 season, of course. Harper spent plenty of time on the disabled list in 2013 and 2014, and if those issues reflect an actual proneness to injury rather than the byproduct of a few freak on-field incidents, it’ll cost him some part of his huge windfall.

But if the healthy, unspeakably awesome 2015 version of Bryce Harper is the Bryce Harper we get moving forward, and if the sport’s next collective bargaining agreement brings no massive shift in its free-agent economy, Harper’s going to get so, so much money. A 10-year, $400 million contract actually seems fairly reasonable for a player of his caliber hitting free agency at age 26. And if free-agent contracts keep escalating the way they have been, Harper could even be the first guy to clear $500 million.

Unless he signs an extension, the slugger will hit free agency after the 2018 season.

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